SAN ANTONIO — An alleged abusive husband, whose wife and young son hid under their apartment complex stairwell watching as he stabbed a 67-year-old neighbor in the heart, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murder.

Daniel Reyes' attorney conceded during opening statements that much of what prosecutors said about the stabbing was true. Reyes, 29, was wielding a knife, he said.

But James Wiederhold, referred to by witnesses as “Mr. Jimmy,” was a “busy body” who never should have inserted himself in a domestic dispute, attorney Michael Sawyer added.

“Mr. Jimmy is a much bigger individual,” Sawyer said, suggesting that he put Reyes in a situation where the defendant was forced to fight for his life. “He may be a great person, but he acted incorrectly that evening and it cost him his life.”

Reyes was initially arrested in August 2012 for injury to the elderly after emergency responders found Wiederhold bleeding on the ground at the Babcock Road apartment complex — the mother of the defendant's three children attempting to apply pressure to the neighbor's wounds. Wiederhold died after a month of unconsciousness and multiple heart surgeries.

Most Popular

“James Wiederhold was a good neighbor,” prosecutor Wendi Wilson-Ortiz told jurors in the 290th state District Court. “He was a grandfatherly type of individual. He liked to look out for people.”

Wiederhold had watched the argument between the defendant and longtime girlfriend Estella Servin as it got increasingly violent on their apartment walkway, Servin told jurors. The neighbor never threatened Reyes but told him to “walk it off,” pointing out that pushing his wife and pulling her hair was considered assault, she said. He eventually called police, she said.

“(Reyes) told me to get the F inside,” she testified. “If not I was going to get hurt or he (Wiederhold) was going to get hurt.”

A short time later, Reyes was “scavenging” through their kitchen when he told her, “Come here, (expletive),” she said, recalling that she and her 8-year-old son fled the house. Both were hiding outside as Reyes ran back out the apartment with a knife from the kitchen and stabbed the neighbor, she recalled.

The defendant's son is also expected to testify against him this week.

Reyes was subdued with a Taser and arrested later that night, after officers said he reached for two bloody knives in his back pocket as they confronted him walking alongside a nearby stretch of Fredericksburg Road.